


better off with(out) me

by sunsetveins



Series: forgiveness (can you imagine?) [2]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Forgiveness, Insecurity, M/M, Protect Peter Parker, Sequel, Serious Wade, Suicide, Tony Stark Tries, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, and he's also trying to protect peter, and protect peter, and tony is kind of an ass, but he is wrong, but that's because he doesn't understand, except it's Wade sooo, so wade tries to be responsible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:53:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetveins/pseuds/sunsetveins
Summary: “He wasn’t in a good state of mind the last time we saw him, Deadpool. Kid seemed pretty out of it. He hasn’t answered his phone, his door, or emergency Avengers calls, but JARVIS has informed me that he’s in his apartment. I don’t think that paints a pretty picture, do you?”No. He doesn’t think that it does either.“I can be there in less than a day,” Wade states. He’s already walking towards the door, towards New York, towards Peter. Stark stops him.“I don’t think you’re needed here, Deadpool. You’ve done enough.”or the one where Wade just wanted to give Peter a better life





	better off with(out) me

**Author's Note:**

> sequel to Amnesia

The night Wade left, he swears it was raining. 

He remembers the look on Peter’s face, and he remembers how damp his cheeks seemed, and he swears it was raining.

The alternative reason would just be too hard to think about.

It doesn’t really stop him, though. What if Peter was crying? What if Peter was actually upset that Wade was leaving him?

It couldn’t be possible and he knows this. God, fucking Tony Stark tells him daily how well Peter is doing. Why that is, Wade will never know, but he’s as grateful as he is agonized.

He can’t blame Tony, really. He didn’t know about them. He wasn’t aware just how deeply in love Wade was with his precious little protege. Wade was nothing more to Tony than a slightly less than villainous mercenary that befriended the Avenger’s youngest member, the baby of the family who couldn’t be blamed because he didn’t know any better. So he can’t blame Tony for telling him in the most beaming of voices just how well Peter was doing without Wade. He can’t. 

He wants to. God, he wants to _kill_ the boasting genius for _lying_ – because he just has to be, okay – but _he can’t_ , because Peter would be _upset_ and he _loves_ him and – _oh god, what if he’s really fine without Wade?_

This thought process brings him back to his conclusion that it had to be raining that night, because Peter was fine. He was happy. He had moved on from Wade, if he had ever been in love with him to begin with to need to, anyway. 

It’s better this way. He tells himself this daily – whether to keep from running back or to torture himself, he’s not quite sure. It’s better this way. It’s better now that he’s gone, because this way he can’t hold Peter back anymore. He can’t hurt him anymore.

Wade isn’t stupid. He knows that being an Avenger meant the world to Peter and that proving himself was his number one goal when it came to the team, and he knows that his presence made that hard for Peter. Their relationship made that hard for him, because for as many people as Peter saved, there were five that Wade had killed. He was constantly carrying around Wade’s baggage and nothing would ever change that, not unless Wade was no longer a factor.

The Avengers would never see Peter how he wanted to be seen as long as Wade was there tainting every accomplishment. Leaving was for the best. Now it didn’t matter that Wade had killed a thousand more than Peter had saved, because he wasn’t with Peter anymore. He wasn’t there for Peter to be compared to.

It’s better this way. 

 

-

 

It isn’t better this way.

Wade misses Peter’s smile. He turned in a bank robber today instead of shooting him between the eyes and he misses Peter’s smile.

He had thought that maybe he’d go back to his old habits – because killing was so much easier than saving – but every time he lifted his gun to some weirdo bad guy’s temple, he saw Peter’s eyes instead of theirs, heard Peter telling him some dorky science pun that never made any sense instead of hearing whatever bullshit the baddy of the night had to say, and he just couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. 

He isn’t used to being good without Peter by his side. Wade thought it would feel weird, but it didn’t. It felt almost good, if you took away the stabbing pain in his heart when he told a really good joke about the size of Tony Stark’s wallet to no one at all because he forgot that it wouldn’t be followed by Peter’s laugh. If you took away that variable, the sensation of being able to say he hadn’t killed anyone in months was an almost pleasant one.

There’s something deep inside of him that aches at the thought. The reality hurts him like nothing has ever truly hurt him before. Peter will always be part of him now. He’s changed him in ways that can never be reversed. He _remade_ him – took him apart and rebuilt from the ground up. He’s a better person because of Peter, and that makes him sick.

The boxes laugh at him for his fears. Just because Peter Parker changed him doesn’t mean that Wade changed him, too. Peter is far too _good_ to ever be corrupted by the likes of Wade Wilson. 

Nonetheless, he sits awake at night worrying that he hurt Peter. That’s all Wade has ever done to the people he loves, and he had tried so very hard not to damage what was left of Peter. The world had already dealt him one too many bad cards. Wade Wilson was not going to be added to the list of people that let Peter down. He fears now that he had been doing that all along. It strengthens the part of him that knows it was best to leave. That fear is what keeps him from running back when he hears that Spider-Man hasn’t been spotted in two weeks.

He can’t save Peter anymore. He’ll just have to save the people he used to kill instead. 

 

-

 

Tony Stark calls him on Tuesdays. It’s a thing, and Wade doesn’t quite understand it, but he’s grateful in ways that he could never explain. 

“Where are you now, Deadpool?” Stark asks, just like he always does.

“Nowhere you wouldn’t be able to find me,” Wade responds, just like he always does. 

He’s in Detroit. He’s been there for three weeks, which is the exact amount of time that Peter has been missing back in New York. Wade needed something to keep the boxes entertained. 

“Figured so. Parker is still MIA.”

Wade winces, fighting every instinct to hang up and make his way to New York right that second. He barely keeps himself from grilling Tony for every ounce of information he’s got on Peter’s disappearance. 

“Is that so?” he grits out, teeth clenched.

“It is. I’m sorry, _Wade_ ,” Tony says. Wade freezes.

Tony has only ever called him by his name once. 

“What do you think is wrong with Peter, _Iron Man?_ ” Wade demands. He’s only ever called Tony by his alias once, as well.

“He wasn’t in a good state of mind the last time we saw him, Deadpool. Kid seemed pretty out of it. He hasn’t answered his phone, his door, or emergency Avengers calls, but JARVIS has informed me that he’s in his apartment. I don’t think that paints a pretty picture, do you?”

No. He doesn’t think that it does either. 

“I can be there in less than a day,” Wade states. He’s already walking towards the door, towards New York, _towards Peter_. Stark stops him.

“I don’t think you’re needed here, Deadpool. You’ve done enough.”

Wade hangs up instead of replying. Their conversations always end this way. Usually, though, Wade isn’t still considering walking out the door.

“He doesn’t need you,” Wade mutters to himself as he falls back onto the couch. His phone falls beside of him, lit up with a background image of himself and Peter. The picture disappears, replaced by a name and an accept or decline option.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even bother to spare the phone a second glance once he reads the name. They aren’t Peter. He doesn’t care. 

He can’t let them hurt him right now, not when he doesn’t know how Peter is, not when he knows that Peter would never treat him like they do. 

So he lets it go to voicemail. 

 

-

 

Wade shoots himself in the head exactly 16 times before he decides that maybe going back to New York would be an okay thing to consider. After all, going back to New York doesn’t have to mean going back to Peter. It doesn’t have to mean hurting him.

He doesn’t stop once he starts packing, even though he knows that he’s lying to himself. Going back to New York most definitely means going back to Peter. He can’t bring himself to care, though. At least, he can’t bring himself to care enough to stop.

He packs his bags – they’re mostly full of weapons and little scribbled notes with Peter’s handwriting across them, and one T-Shirt he tries to tell himself was always his, even when he knows it wasn’t – and he heads for New York. Like he told Tony Stark, he’s back home in less than a day. 

 

-

 

He doesn’t see Peter for another week. When he finally does, Peter doesn’t see him. 

He’s Spider-Man, swinging and cracking jokes and webbing criminals to the sides of buildings. He’s Spider-Man, not Peter, and Deadpool almost forgets himself and starts to join him. He catches himself when he watches Peter swing away, up onto the nearest rooftop away from the webbed criminal, where he then rips his mask off and scrubs viciously at his eyes.

It takes Wade a second to realize that Peter is crying. Once he does, he’s gone before he can think twice about it.

 

-

 

When Wade and Peter come face to face again, on top of Peter’s apartment building, they don’t speak.

Peter punches him in the face. It’s weak, and he’s sobbing when he does it, but he _punches him_ in the _face._

All Wade does is wrap him in his arms, mentally screaming at the boxes to let him have this. Let him take this in. He fully intends to leave and never search Peter out again once the younger lets go.

Except he’s mumbling into Wade’s neck, squeezing him with all his might.

“Please don’t leave me again. _Please._ I love you so much. You can’t go again, you can’t leave.”

Peter begs, pleads, gasps. He grips Wade tight. _He doesn’t let go._

“I won’t ever leave you again, baby boy,” Wade swears. He means it. 

There’s a million things they’ll have to talk about. A thousand things Wade will have to face. A hundred that Peter will have to remind him of every single day. There’s only ten that matter right this second, though. 

(1) Wade is home.

(2) Peter loves him.

(3) He hasn’t let go.

(4) Neither has Wade.

(5) They’re together.

(6) Tony Stark messes up sometimes.

(7) Forgiving is better than forgetting.

(8) Peter is here, not Spider-Man.

(9) Wade is here, not Deadpool.

(10) There’s a distinct smell of taco’s coming from Peter’s apartment.

“Want to go eat Taco Bell?” Peter asks, a slight smile on his face.

Wade is already in the apartment before he even gets the entire question out.


End file.
